The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“Use language what you will, you can never say anything but what you are.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“Thought is the bud, language the blossom and action the fruit behind it.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It is in bad taste," is the most formidable word an Englishman can pronounce. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
An orator or author is never successful till he has learned to make his words smaller than his ideas. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“Words so vascular and alive they would bleed if you cut them, words that walked and ran.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The word liberty in the mouth of Mr. Webster sounds like the word love in the mouth of a courtesan. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every word which is used to express a moral or intellectual fact, if traced to its root, is found to be borrowed… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The use of natural history is to give us aid in supernatural history: the use of the outer creation, to give us… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation -rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The scholar may lose himself in schools, in words, and become a pedant; but when he comprehends his duties, he above all… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every word we speak is million-faced or convertible to an indefinite number of applications. If it were not so we could read… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Solitary converse with nature; for thence are ejaculated sweet and dreadful words never uttered in libraries. Ah! the spring days, the summer… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I cannot find language of sufficient energy to convey my sense of the sacredness of private integrity. All men, all things, the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Language is a city, to the building of which every human being brought a stone; yet he is no more to be… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“Why covet a knowledge of new facts? Day and night, house and garden, a few books, a few actions, serve us as… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
By virtue of this science the poet is the Namer, or Language-maker, naming things sometimes after their appearance, sometimes after their essence,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture. Language is fossil poetry. As the limestone of the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
My companion assumes to know my mood and habit of thought, and we go on from explanation to explanation, until all is… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The angels are so enamored of the language that is spoken in heaven that they will not distort their lips with the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
No one has a prosperity so high and firm that two or three words can't dishearten it. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There is no calamity that right words will not begin to redress — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
An answer in words is delusive; it is really no answer to the questions you ask. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Bare lists of words are found suggestive to an imaginative and excited mind. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every discourse is an approximate answer: but it is of small consequence, that we do not get it into verbs and nouns,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There are men whose language is strong and defying enough, yet their eyes and their actions ask leave of other men to… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I do not hesitate to read. all good books in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable-any real insight… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Observe how every truth and every error, each a thought of someone's mind, clothes itself with societies, houses, cities, language, ceremonies, newspapers — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
When the eyes say one thing, and the tongue another, a practiced man relies on the language of the first. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Words are finite organs of the infinite mind. They cannot cover the dimensions of what is in truth. They break, chop, and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
When we attempt to define and describe God, both language and thought desert us, and we are as helpless as fools and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
If we will not interfere with our thought, but will act entirely, or see how the thing stands in God, we know the particular… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will or against his will he draws his portrait to the eye of his… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
Consideration is the soil in which wisdom may be expected to grow, and strength be given to every up-springing plant of duty. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
“There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
Another success is the post-office, with its educating energy augmented by cheapness and guarded by a certain religious sentimentin mankind; so that the power… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
No man can be criticised but by a greater than he. Do not, then, read the reviews. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
Coal lay in ledges under the ground since the Flood, until a laborer with pick and windlass brings it to the surface. We may… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends, but they are imprisoned by an enchanter in these paper and leathern… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
The compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
